New experiments show that the asteroids that slammed into Earth and the moon more than 4 billion years ago were vaporised into a mist of iron. The findings, published in Nature Geoscience, suggest that…

Spotting ancient volcanoes of Britain.
University of BristolJanuary 20, 2015

A British volcanologist has won one of the most prestigious awards in science – the Vetlesen Prize, which is considered to be the earth sciences equivalent of the Nobel Prize. Stephen Sparks of the University…

Chikyu: a drillship more interested in crust than oil.
GleamDecember 26, 2014

Ten years on from the devastating Boxing Day earthquake and tsunami, our understanding of very large earthquakes has grown enormously. From satellites monitoring changes on the Earth’s surface to drilling…

Over time, Earth’s plates went from static to dynamic.
Modestas Jonauskas/FlickrSeptember 17, 2014

Plate tectonics – the large-scale movement of Earth’s lithosphere or outer layers – started around three billion years ago, but how those movements started was a bit of a mystery – until today. With colleagues…

We live in a ‘wide brown land’ – but we need to figure out how to use it sustainably.
Duncan RawlinsonApril 22, 2014

AUSTRALIA 2025: How will science address the challenges of the future? In collaboration with Australia’s chief scientist Ian Chubb, we’re asking how each science discipline will contribute to Australia…

Our planet’s interior is complex and has many layers. Their formation and structure contain many unsolved mysteries. But new research is providing some clues about how Earth’s internal structure may have…

Injecting fluids into the Earth, whether to recover natural gas or to obtain thermal energy from the planet, can cause earthquakes. New reports that look at American fracking, deep waste-water injection…

You’ll know by now that six scientists and a government official have been [found guilty of manslaughter](as reported yesterday](https://theconversation.com/scientists-found-guilty-for-laquila-earthquake-deaths-but-why-10292…